


Like A Rolling Stone

by cellard00rs



Category: Gravity Falls, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/M, Homelessness, M/M, Pancakes, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10574097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellard00rs/pseuds/cellard00rs
Summary: Stan picks up a hitchhiker.





	

This kid is sitting in front of him in his dingy kitchen and Stan doesn’t even know what in the hell he’s doing.

He really doesn’t.

He doesn’t know why he picked up this teen hitchhiking on Route 2. He doesn’t know why, when he noticed his pale, withdrawn face, he offered him something to eat. And he sure as hell doesn’t know why he brought him to the Shack and why the guy agreed to come in. 

He can tell this isn’t the kind of kid who’s the trusting type. Stan can see it in his cool, deep blue eyes and it’s like looking in a mirror – it’s like seeing himself a million decades ago, when he was just a punk kid himself.

Not that this kid is much of a punk, per say. The dark clothes, the long hair, the ragged beanie – he’s obviously not the jock type, the popular kid. Hell, if he _was_ the popular kid, no way in hell he’d be having his thumb up and out along a roadside. No, this kid is a loner. An introvert. The suspicious type who probably normally has his head in a book and his fingers writing in some scrappy journal and Jesus, maybe _that’s_ why he’s here…

Because Stan saw hints of himself in this boy alright, but he also saw hints of his twin and goddamn if he could just ignore them. Especially when the boy is so goddamn _thin_. He’s a rail. A slip of nothing but bones, pale skin like a shadow and he must have been truly hungry to risk following Stan inside. 

He seems like the type to be suspicious of everyone, but as the scent of pancakes hits the air, this look steals over his face and Stan feels his eyes prickle at it, because old age is a hell of a thing and it makes you a sentimental old fuck whether you’d have it or no.

That look…

…Christ, Stan used to carry it himself. That look that says you’ve been alone too long, on the streets too long and you’d do damn just about damn nearf _anything_ for a taste of something _substantial_. 

 _Food_. 

 _Substance_. 

The desire once it’s been taken away for long enough, denied long enough…it’s indescribable. Stan did many a horrid thing _just_ for food. He doesn’t want this kid to do the same. _He doesn’t_.

So when Stan tops a plate sky high with pancakes and slides them towards the kid, he makes sure to clear his throat when he says with deep meaning, “On the house.”

The kid still looks doubtful, but as Stan pushes forward a bottle of syrup, it all seems to hit him at once. A full K.O. He grabs the nearby utensils with shaking fingers and digs in. He tears in, ravenous, and Stan feels his heart tighten even more as he sits across from him and watches with a calculating gaze. He waits a while, lets the poor guy get a good fill before he asks, “So, where you headed?”

The kid doesn’t stop devouring the mountain before him. Just shrugs. Stan nods to himself, gets up and pours himself and his guest two cups of coffee. He sits back down, mugs dispersed, before he tries again, “What did you say your name was?”

“Di’giv’m,” is the mumble between the mouthfuls but Stan understands it. _Didn’t give it_.

Stan sighs, sips his coffee, “How’s about you give it now?”

Again, that look of mistrust. But the kid’s mouth is stuffed with nice, warm pancakes and maple syrup and it seems to motivate him. He swallows and offers, “Jughead.”

“Jughead? What the hell kinda name is that?”

“ _Mine_ ,” The kid returns with that air that only teenagers can carry. Stan would roll his eyes, but he’s too curious to tempt pissing Jughead off, “Fair enough. I’m Stan.”

Jughead just sort of ducks his head in acknowledgement before returning to his food. He’s really packing it away. Clearing the plate like a champ and Stan wonders how long he’s gone without something to eat. Or maybe he’s always like this. Stan vaguely recalls his raging metabolism. That need to consume, to try and get something to make up for all the energy you had. All the _life_.

Ah, how quickly that all gets sucked away the older you get. You grow slow. Slow and dull and listless and Stan’s been sort of floating in that of late. The summer’s coming on. Another summer and no success with the portal and apparently his grand niece and nephew are coming and fuck, that is _not_ something he wants to deal with. 

They’re younger than Jughead here – just creeping up on their teens and he can’t handle kids. Not for a whole summer – fuck, why did he agree to take them in again?

Maybe that’s another reason he picked up Jughead. The parallels to himself and Ford notwithstanding, he has to start preparing himself, right? Wendy’s not the best example of American youth. Maybe this one will be better. But, looking at him, Stan already knows he’s not. He’s atypical. Weird. It’s why he drawn to him. I mean – what kind of kid has a beanie reminiscent of a crown?

He wonders if the grand kids…what’re their names again? Diaper and Marble? He wonders if they’ll be as interesting. Interesting and hungry because the plate is damn near empty and Stan eyes him, “You want more?”

Jughead looks hesitant to ask. Stan gets up and immediately starts making more. He has his back to him, as he works with eggs and milk and flour, so it’s easier to talk to him, to ask, “What brings you out this way, Jug?”

No answer. Or maybe another shrug that Stan just can’t see. Wendy shrugs a lot. Stan makes the batter, heats the skillet again, “You got family?”

“Some,” he gets and, honestly, he’s surprised he got an answer to that one. But he smirks because damn if it isn’t the _exact_ same answer he’d give if someone asked him the same question. He pours out the first cake, watches it slowly begin to bubble, “How about a girl? A boy?”

Nothing.

“Both? Neither?”

A heavy silence. Stan flips the pancake and sees a nice, warm, golden brown top.

“There _was_ someone…”

 _Of course there was_.

“…a girl…”

“And?”

That heavy silence again. Pancake flipped a second time.  Flipped and cooked and put aside. Another cooked. Another. Finally, “It wasn’t going to last.”

No comment. No judgement. Stan just waits. He just makes pancake after pancake. He just carefully stacks them on a fresh plate.

“…not that…” an uncomfortable noise, “She didn’t…” an annoyed huff, “ _I_ left.”

Stan’s eyebrows rise but, again, no words from him.

“Not just ‘cause of that. I didn’t leave just because of her. There were…lots of reasons. A...lot happened. But, since you asked…she came to mind and she…I mean, it-y’know-it wouldn’t have worked out. Not…not in the long run. She…well, she sort of had a thing for a friend of mine and I’m sure they’ll be together eventually and I was just in the way. I was just…delaying the inevitable. A minor speed bump in the roadway of fate.”

The last words strike Stan as very peculiar. As very _Ford_. They’re the kind of words only a writer would say aloud. Stan has the plate full of pancakes now and replaces the empty one, looking Jughead in the eyes, “She love him?”

“Yes,” is the immediate response but there’s that hint, that barest thread of uncertainty and Stan frowns, “You sure?”

“Sure enough,” Jughead supplies forcefully and he’s striking out at the newest set of pancakes, eating them perhaps a little less ferociously, but with enough of a healthy appetite to assure Stan that making more was the right call. 

He sits across from Jughead again and finishes his coffee. The Shack is quiet and grey in the early morning light. He only went out to Route 2 earlier to get some parts for the portal…parts that would have been, ah, hard to acquire in the lightest of the day’s hours.

He’d been on his way back when he’d seen Jughead, duffle bag slung over one shoulder, eyes vacant, skin and clothes dirty, thumb up and calling and so obviously without a home, without hope and…

Stan shakes his head, tries not to recall how he’d looked so very much the same back then. How he’d wished and wished as car after car passed him (ignored him, pretended he didn’t exist, pretended he wasn’t freezing or boiling or goddamn _dying_ on the side of the street) wished that just one – just _one_ – would _stop_. Stop and help and now here he is…the one trying to help.

And he feels like he’s shit at it.

Not a news flash.

He can’t help himself, much less someone else. Just ask Ford. Oh, wait, you can’t. He’s been lost for decades. Decades because of Stan’s big fuck up. Stan’s had plenty of fuck ups, mind you – but this is the BIG one. 

The one he’s been living with day in and day out and now he’s got fucking young kids coming here that he has to safeguard and he’s trying to help this wanderer and Jesus, what in the hell is he doing again?

Jughead finishes the food and he looks a little less wan. But there’s pain in him. Heartache. And Stan can see it and yeah, the girl, she might not be the main reason he left, but he’s enough of a gambler to bet all on the black of her being a big part of it. A big part of him. After all, Ford wasn’t the main reason Stan left – his father kicked him out, after all. But damn if Ford wasn’t the biggest part of it.

It makes his next question the easiest of all, “What’s her name?”

Jughead doesn’t meet his eyes.

“The girl,” Stan probes gently and ah, _there_ it is. There’s that glint of tears, barely leashed, that glaze that comes into Stan’s eyes whenever he thinks of or says his brother’s name. And Jughead whispers hers with the same reverence, the same aching, unrequited, soul-crushing _love_ , “Betty,”

“Betty,” Stan repeats, “Pretty name.”

Jughead doesn’t manage to stifle the sniffle, the rub of one of his his flannel shirt sleeves under his nose as he blinks rapidly and shrugs, rising, “I should…I should go.”

“You can,” Stan returns simply, because he’s been where Jughead’s been. He’s stood in those same shoes and he knows better than to try to stop him, than to try and cage him. He’s a rolling stone right now and he has to roll until he _chooses_ to stop, but Stan can continue to offer what nobody offered him, “But, y’know, you can take a nap first if you want.”

The look Jughead shoots him is so full of doubt that Stan can only hold his hands up, “Look, kid, I promise I ain’t gonna do nothing but let ya sleep.”

Stan doesn’t blame him for the doubt. Not at all. The world – now, then – it’s a dangerous pit. Trust is hard to come by. Hard to earn. Trust is a tenuous thread and strangers aren’t the best people to offer it. But there are still dark circles under Jughead’s eyes and Stan’s done his best to be genuine, to be helpful. To be what others hardly ever are. _Decent_.

And, Jughead must see something in him, in his eyes. Because he nods and Stan waves him towards a room. He shows him how he can lock the door from the inside (because he gets how that’s important) and where the bathroom is and he leaves him to it. Stan’s not sure how long he stays. He’s not sure how long he sleeps. All he knows is that when he strolls around the room later that afternoon, Jughead is long gone.

Long gone, but the sheets are balled up, clearly slept in, and Stan smiles quietly to himself. _Betty, huh? Hope you manage to work things out with her, Jughead. Hope you manage to roll to a stop soon and she’s there waiting for you. Waiting for you…like I hope Sixer is waiting for me._

Stan thinks of his brother on the other side of the portal, thinks of him waiting and, with a heavy breath, goes downstairs to start another night of long, hard work.

**Author's Note:**

> This plays around with time a lot. Obviously Riverdale is set long after Gravity Falls ended but, eh, this is what I had in mind - so I went with it. Visit my tumblr if you'd like! http://cellard00rs.tumblr.com/


End file.
